


A New Beginning

by DownhillSky



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Self-Insert AU, Trans Dovahkiin | Dragonborn, but also I try to make the characters believable, but probably dwelt on more, if you aren't ok with trans people or lesbians this isn't the fic for you, many mods, updates weekly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 18:14:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29336631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DownhillSky/pseuds/DownhillSky
Summary: I, a relatively genre savvy English student, wake up in Skyrim. It goes as well as you can expect for someone that doesn't regularly get into life-and-death situations in our world.
Kudos: 5





	1. Prologue

My name is Kara. Sorry, no surname - I don’t want to doxx myself if I ever get out of this mess, y’understand. I’m a down-on-her-luck English student at an unfortunately British university, essentially confined to her bed through the combined executive function taxes of winter, new depression meds, a noticeable amount of dysphoria with no thanks to my country’s transition system, and the wonders of a global pandemic.

That really tells you all that you need to know about my life back home, to be honest. One night in early February, the unseasonal snow still falling and my clock blaring its red letters onto the opposite wall (the display reads 03:27AM, if you must know), I finally manage to pass the fuck out. I don’t normally dream, though that has changed recently. The new meds have something to do with it, most likely. I’m not sure this one counts as a dream though - it was pitch black, with no sense even of myself. I heard a woman’s voice. She said two simple, disjointed sentences:

“Approach, my child - and choose where your new life shall begin.”

Then, a few seconds later, her voice now tinged with sorrow:

“Such is the strange and twisted hand of fate.”

Then I opened my eyes in a place I very much did not go to sleep in.


	2. A Twisted Hand Indeed

The first thing that hits me is the cold, before I can even register anything else. My skin is crawling with goosebumps, the snot of my nose has become one large icicle, the air on my exposed limbs feels like blades, and my nipples could probably cut diamonds.

The second thing that hits me is that my back and neck ache more than usual from the weird angle I was sleeping in. It was like I’d fallen asleep at my desk again, though there was at least better support than that tiny chair - damned thing doesn’t even reach my shoulders.

The third thing that hit me was that my limbs were exposed, and I’d taken to wearing socks and a dressing gown in bed like an old man. So something was up.  
The fourth thing that hit me, and this was the big one I probably should’ve realised much earlier, is that I was in a moving wooden cart watching damned snowy _mountains_ and _clouds_ drift by.

There was a man opposite me. Long-hair, blond, caked in dirt, wearing showy plate armour with a blue tabard and a bear pelt or something. He was saying something about me waking up, and how we all got caught as he gestured to the two besides us - a redhead in rags and a guy in bigger plate armour I couldn’t really see the face of. His pauldrons were in the way, with another thick pelt over the top. I will admit, I wasn’t paying attention, as I’d noticed a fifth thing.

I had fucking tits now. And gods damn if I couldn’t feel every damned cobble we bounced over, cause whoever decided on my outfit hadn’t heard of bras apparently. But really, the growing ache of that was secondary to the fact I had tits. I don’t think you realise how big a thing this was for me. I’d consigned myself to never being able to grow these in our world. Trans healthcare was too shite. Hell, an independent review using the NHS’s own figures put us at an average of almost two decades of waiting before receiving actual treatment.

Of course, this elation proves short-lived. I am well aware we aren’t allowed nice things. I should’ve expected to hear the call from the walls when it came.

“General Tullius, sir! The headsman is waiting!”

It seemed that my time in this world would also be short. The man opposite me continued talking, like he had been all this time, making snide digs at our captors, before saying something about elves. Of course there were elves. I woke up in a frozen hellscape, I’m about to be executed, I got about four years of E overnight - why not elves? Its not like anything should make sense today.

We’d been inside the city walls for a while now. My head was back against the cart wall, I was too Done with this all to be taking in things like the stone keep we were rounding, or the wooden buildings around. It would’ve been sensible. If I had been in the right frame of mind, I’d’ve been planning escape routes - when the first one falls, I make a break for it, run round back of that house, jump up onto the roof and over the wall- the cart pulls to a stop.

“Get these prisoners out of the carts! Move it!”

“Why are we stopping?” stammers the redhead, worry in his voice.

“End of the line.” The blond stands up after saying that, in his sombre tone. “Let’s go. Shouldn’t keep the gods waiting for us.”

I lever myself upright, noticing the binding on my hands for the first time as the redhead yells further protests and pleas. The four of us stumble down towards the two soldiers - a man and a woman, both in heavy metal plate with gold inlay that looks almost roman. The man has a clipboard in hand. Now I’m planning my escape for proper. Climbing’s probably out cause of the bindings, though it is looser than I might expect - I can move hands a fair distance apart, but not enough for a full range of movement. The other prisoners are hearing their names and walking off to the side. I should probably listen, but then again, they’re all likely to be dead soon. Better to focus on my plan.

The redhead runs. Too early. The woman cries out: “Archers!” a pair of arrows loose, and he drops before he makes it ten paces.

There goes that plan, I suppose.

“Wait,” calls out the man, as if I hadn’t just watched a man get killed in front of me, “You there - who are you?”

I wrack my brains for something, in the vain hopes that if I survive I can avoid being sent straight back.

“Kara, of the Shattered fuckin’ Void.”

My voice surprises me. It’s closer to my old one than I expected, which makes sense. I guess the free oestrogen didn’t come with quite as much free voice training. The man doesn’t bat an eye regardless, and just makes an inane comment - asks if I’m from Daggerhall or something. When I don’t respond, he sighs.

“I’m sorry. We’ll make sure your remains are returned to High Rock.”

As I resist the urge to scream at him that I don’t fucking CARE where my remains are returned to, he turns to his partner.

“Captain, what should we do? Her name’s not on the list.”

The spark of hope grows larger.

“Forget the lists. She goes to the block.”

The spark flickers and begins to fade. I follow her to wear a pretentious old man is angrily lecturing another old man, this one gagged and in bigger armour. A booming roar echoes across the village, and that shuts everyone the hell up to see what it is. We turn up shit all, and I realise I should apologise for the swearing. You understand, this was a trying fucking time. But anyway, we turn up shit all, the general says its nothing, and a priestess in orange hooded robes says some bullshit about our souls and Aetherius and the divine’s blessings. One of the prisoners gets fed up, and yells to hurry it up while he walks up to the block.

“As you wish,” goes the captain, and she kicks him down onto the block of wood, and down comes the massive executioner’s axe, and his head falls into a little wooden crate. It looks like a milk crate, I think to myself. His body slumps, and I think more about milk crates, and listen to the people yelling insults, because otherwise I need to think about how it rolls towards me. I do not want to think about the white spine I can see, the red mass of uneven flesh and bubbles where oxygen had been passing through the split remains of his windpipe. Hope is an ember now.

“Next - the breton in the rags!”

I look around to see who they mean, and a second roar rings out.

Then the man in the gold-inlay armour gestures at me.

“To the block, prisoner.”

I trudge forwards, desperately running numbers and plans in my head, each one ending with an arrow in my lung. A boot presses against my back, and pain blossoms in my jaw as it impacts the sticky, red-stained wood. The headsman starts to lift his axe. The ember of hope in my breast flickers, and finally dies.

A third roar rings out.

“What in Oblivion is that?!” yells the old man.

A mass of black scales and teeth lands on the tower in front of me. I can feel the impact through my whole body.

“Dragon!” rings out the cry.

The headsman’s axe… falls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm sure y'all know how these first few chapters will go for now, but I'm gonna try to keep things interesting - and who knows? Maybe some things will happen you don't expect.  
> I thrive off comments, so please feel free to do so, and the next chapter will be posted on the 17th!


	3. Chapter 3

The blade of the axe fell into the wood of the executioner’s block with a solid thunk, scant inches from my eyes - the headsman themself landing shortly afterwards. He pushed himself back up from his hands and needs as the dragon shouted something, and the sky began to glow orange. The clouds gathered into a funnel - some vast supercell, spewing lightning and flaming boulders. Meteors. I worked my right arm below me, propped myself up on the elbow, and then another roar sounded and suddenly I was flying through the air. The axe tore free of its housing, the haft whipping round and clattering against my ribs in midair. It felt like I was hanging for a minute, but I could only have been flung a couple of feet, cause I didn’t even skid when my back hit the stone paving. I could feel each pulse of my heartbeat in my head. I lay there and groaned for a second.

Doing so did not cause the apocalypse to stop happening. Right then. I rocked myself over. Right arm goes back under body. Push up with elbow. Ignore the chipped rock digging into it. Get foot under belly. Don’t bother figuring out if you can stand, that wastes time.

“Hey, lass! Get up! Come on, the gods won’t give us a second chance!”

The blond, I think. I’ll have to get his name if we live. Push up with feet, dig toes into cracks in the ground cause whatever the fuck I’m wearing don’t have grip. Fucking _push_. There we go. Standing. Push again. Run. Where’d the blond go. A tower’s in front of us. Door’s open. _Go_. Ignore the burning legs, they’ll burn more if you stay. Don’t you dare fucking stumble. A block of stone crashed into the ground next to me as I stumbled forwards, burning, careening back behind me - I swear I could hear the whistle as it passed. Don’t stop to think about it. Save that for later. _Lift_ those legs there’s a step to get in. Now, you can collapse.

And I did just that. I wasn’t the only one, to be fair - there were at least three others, nursing various wounds. Its hard not to tell myself I need an excuse, but this time I did have one, cause at least these all had padded armour and chain, whereas I was half dead of exposure even before the dragon.

The blond had been talking to the old man, and reached some kind of conclusion.

“Up through the tower! Go!” He urges me.

I push more adrenaline back into burning limbs, and start to stumble up the spiralling staircase. Two more in orange and blue are at the top, talking plans. Then the wall blasts outwards - I only see it for a second, but I don’t think I’ll forget seeing the stone pass through their chests and heads as the dragon’s black head bursts into the tower. I stumbled backwards, grabbing a metal torch sconce for support as it reared in to breathe, and blew a lance of orange flame through the building. I could see it pass straight through the gaps between the stones and into the room below from my vantage point. I hope they’re okay, but blondie doesn’t let me dwell on that. The dragon disappeared as quickly as it came, and he pushed me forward, looking out the dizzying height of the hole in the tower - we must’ve been around three floors up.

“See the inn on the other side?”

I nodded shakily. There’s a hole burned through the roof, the thatch starting to catch, and a pile of splintered, jagged timbers in a burning pile on the balcony a floor below us.

“Jump through the roof and keep going.”

I turn dumbly to him. His expression is hard.

“Go! We’ll follow when we can!”

I take a step backwards, and then catapult myself through the air. The wind rushes past my ears. The metres plummet. I land hard, my shoulder slamming against one of the shattered planks, yet another case where a few inches of dumb luck should’ve had me dead. I don’t think I broke anything in the fall. No time to catalogue the insides considering the thatch roof and fire nearby situation - I see a hole to the floor below, so I hobble over to it, grab a crossbeam, and lower myself with all the grace I can muster as a bound woman that never really ate much or exercised, which is to say I gained new bruises on my arse. Standing again, and I turn from the tower to face an exit into the town. Here goes nothing.

I run outside. The dragon lands in front of me as soldiers shout to a kid in front of me. I duck back behind a collapsed pillar, or another piece of rubble. A flash of heat and light. I hear it flap off again. I step back out and there is no child there anymore.

I start to run again as the soldier with the gold-detailed armour yells at me to follow him. No fucking chance. I keep running down a charred… something. Walkway. It ends pretty quick, so I drop down, round a corner between buildings as I hear the dragon land behind me. I dodge the soldier ahead, duck into a building, and feel a blast of compressed heat scorching just shy of my back.

Keep going. Ignore the legs. Legs can go fuck ‘emselves. Round the corner. Out the building. Down the street. Theres the keep. The keep can handle the dragon, probably. I barrel forwards, spy a door, and slam straight into it with my my full, meagre, weight. It isn’t locked. I crash through, spinning from the momentum and topple onto my back in time to see blondie yell at the soldier and run in after me, slamming a bar down on the wooden door.

We’re safe. I hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something tells me my trials have only just begun!  
> Bit of a shorter chapter, as I have most of the rest of Helgen fuly written but... wow is that one going to be long. Let me know what y'all think in the comments, as they give me life, and have a good one!


	4. Chapter 4

I lie in the entry way for a good while, getting my breath back, cataloguing my injuries. Bruised ribs, bleeding shoulder, skinned elbow, bruised ass… I give up pretty quick. There’s too much, but despite the acid in my veins, I don’t think I’m in any serious medical danger. Maybe a concussion.

There’s a circular room ahead, sparsely decorated with flags and a rug. At the back, a dead prisoner in their orange and blue armour, propped against a stool and a low table. Blond-boy’s walked up to it. Seems to know the guy. Makes sense, I suppose - they sure looked like they were all in uniform.

“Hey, lass - get over here. Let’s see if we can get those ropes off you.”

I groan as I push myself up fro the umpteenth time, and pad over to him. He pulls an axe from his belt, gesturing to put my hands on the table. A careful chop, and I’m massaging the flecks of roughly-spun twine from my wrists. Free at last.

“Take Gunjar’s gear. He won’t be needing it anymore.”

“… Armour too?” My voice is practically a rasp.

“Aye.”

I get to work on the belt, and pull the gambeson from over the chainmail. Mail takes a bit longer, and then I can finally pull the jerkin from below. As I start to work on the breeches, thankful that at least I don’t feel any squelching given their status as underwear, he wanders off to check our exits. By the time I have it all in my arms, and one buck-naked dead dude at my feet, he’s concluded that the gate on that side is locked fast, and makes to cross over to the other one, on the opposite side of the room - so I carry the heavy load over to the entry way. Its got enough of a wall for some privacy. I don’t even know what I look like naked yet, I ain’t letting him see that.

Off comes the rags wrapped around my feet. Just rolls of linen wrapped tight round them. I guess it did save them from too much injury, but still, damn. I shimmy off the coarse breeches I wear myself, process that I’d been so caught up in, y’know, everything that I didn’t notice I still have most of my old package there, which raises more questions about what the fuck happened to me to get here. It’s almost like whoever did this knew me, and intimately at that. Anyway. I cough, and pull on the thicker breeches of the dead man. Now, off comes the top. No tattoos that I can see. A healthy bruise between some frankly divine boobs. No visible abs, and no visible ribs either, so thats also a plus. Well, this can all be properly explored later - on goes the jerkin. Its a tad tight in certain places, quite loose in others - to be expected, I suppose. I am rather on the tall side compared to most people I’ve seen here, this one included. I slip the boots on next. They’re fluffy. And I crave warm toes. Chainmail hauberk now - that slips right over the top, again not the most comfortable, but again still very much necessary. A bounce up and down, and its settled, and I realise I really should’ve asked some of my renne faire friends how the put on their mail because jumping is no longer something I want to do if it all possible, and most definitely not when I have a mass of steel rings resting on my nips.

Its as I’m slipping on the gambeson that I hear a shout.

“Get this gate open!”

The soldier girl from earlier, in the good armour! She caught up to us! Shitshitshit. I hurry the hell up, and start working on the belt around my waist as I hear some mechanical grating. I’m just putting the tab through the loop for weapon-carrying as I hear blondie shout, and the sound of clanging metal. The tab is good enough. I pick up the axe, and weigh it in my hands. Fuck it.

I quickly sneak out, the jingling of my chain muffled by the gambeson - he’s fighting two against one, the centurion plate armour and what looks like stiffened leather. Probably brigandine. He’s holding his own, but clearly on the defensive, dual axes against a sword each. Axes are not made for parrying. Quickquickquick. Holes in defences: centurion plate doesn’t cover arms. Not a finisher. Neither soldier has a guard on the back of their neck.

Okay. I dart in, and make a swift chop to the base of the centurion’s skull. She drops like a sack of meat. There was more resistance from her body than I’d expected. I can feel the aftershock running down my arm. The leather one yells, noticing me, and takes blondie’s axes to his unarmoured face. The fight can’t have lasted more than fifteen seconds. And two people are dead. Let’s not think about that.

“One of them. Might have the key.” Rasps blondie.

I nod, and pat down the centurion, finding a key ring on her belt. I pry the sword from her hands as I pass it over to him, refusing to look at her face. Swords have guards. Guards are good for blocking. I don’t have a shield. She has a dagger, too - daggers are good for finishing heavily armoured opponents. That makes the third weapon looped through my belt.

The door is open. Let’s not think about why I’m taking these weapons from the people we- let’s not think about why I’m looting these weapons. Or the sound of me freeing the axe.

There’s a staircase, broad and stone, curling down into the earth. Looks like a tunnel or something jutting off from the bottom. We don’t talk as we walk down.

The tunnel seems like a straight shot to- a deafening noise. The ceiling gives way as the dragon roars. There is no longer a tunnel that I’m staggering back from. There is, however, a door to my left. I draw my sword with one hand and push it open to greet another pair of soldiers, the same armour mix as before.

Centurion charges me. I block his overhead strike with the flat of my blade, my free hand pressed against the other side. His sword scrapes down the same, and I use its force to flick my hilt round, splitting open his eye with the crossguard. He yells. I pull my sword back and thrust it at his face - it catches his jaw and angles beneath it, stabbing into his throat. I kick his body off it and spin to find the summary execution of the leather one by blondie.

“A storeroom!” He exclaims, but I’m not listening. I’m not thinking either. He keeps talking, and I follow him towards the end of the room. He says something about potions, which snaps me out of it.

“Potions? Right-” I jog off again, back to the entrance of the room - there’s a long table, and several racks of shelves. Some kind of dining area. On the shelves, amongst varies spices, herbs, and the like, are two opaque bottles. Red and blue. They loop into the belt. I don’t think I can really fit anything else, now. Back to the entrance I run.

“Done?”

I nod.

“Let’s get moving.”

That said, the door swung open. What little remained intact of the tunnel was, thankfully, the right side of it, and so I let him take the lead. Having experienced being first contact for the foe, I have decided that I do not like it, among many other things. We were just rounding the stairs, a ninety degree turn, when I heard him mutter:

“Troll’s blood… It’s a torture room.”

Of course it is. He charges in. I mutter to myself as I follow him down, nearly reacting on instinct now as I see the three other armed prisoners fighting down there. Of course there’s a torture room. They do summary executions of people. Evil elf overlords execute everyone in some kind of police state. Feels like I’m at fucking home.

This is followed by frantic ducking as the hooded soldier shoots fucking lightning across the room from his fingertips, which seems to surprise no-one but me, earning him someone’s poleaxe in the spine.

So I guess there are fucking sith here, too. Dead ones, now, heh. Anyway. Blondie starts talking to the escaped prisoners. I decide to let them catch up, cause wow there are a lot of cages here - but the one I’m interested in is the big one with the weapon rack. It has a shield. I want a shield.  
Shield turns out to be heavier than I expected. On the other hand, its a heavy shield that I can’t be stabbed or shot through, so its staying on me fucking arm.

“Looks like there’s something in that cage -” Blondie’s suddenly next to me, proffering some strips of metal “- it’s locked. Here, see if you can get it open with these picks. We might need the gold when we get out.”

With that, he guides to the middle of three large cages. Indeed, there is something on the floor - a book, a blue flask, and five golden coins. Well, alright then. Let’s have a hand at this lock. The picks he gave me are the standard, basic kind. A small L-shaped pick, and an oversized tension wrench. I stick them both in the heavy lock of the cage, and feel around for a pin - and after a few tries, only find the one, way at the back. Oh well, down it goes, round goes the tool- and then the whole thing locks up. Huh. Oh. Oh! It’s THAT kind of locking mechanism. Well that’s easy! A minor adjustment, and the whole mechanism is spinning freely. The lock pops open, as does the cage door.

“So. How’re we carrying these? Cause I don’t have a-”

Blondie looks around for a second, then cuts me off by throwing a satchel that had been resting on a stool at me. Alright then. In goes the shit.

“Got everything useful. Let’s go?”

He nods, and I start off down the passage. Its not really the keep, anymore - a winding passage of unhewn stone, some kind of natural cavern, albeit with a soil flooring and lit braziers. I’m almost happy. We can finally get out, put this whole thing behind us, and I can start to live.  
Then I hear soldier voices up ahead, and immediately stop, ducking down just in case. But blondie and the others keep going, drawing weapons. Well, out comes the axe, I suppose.

In I charge, but I’m almost happy how I don’t see much action now that we have more allies. They’re all running ahead, following the not-curve of the raised area we’re on, tracing the edge of the square recess in the middle. And then a centurion charges up from the recess towards me. I snap the shield up on reflex, punching the boss straight into their face - they don’t expect it, and reel backwards. Gives me enough time to punch my axe into their face, their throat, and run past as their body falls to the ground. Back to the battle train.

Don’t think about how good you seem to be getting at murder.

Arrows are flying past me now that I’m behind the main force again. A few thunk into my shield, raised to protect my un-helmeted head, and I feel an impact in my shoulder, sending me spinning. When I look, there’s a pockmark hole in the gambeson, but the arrow already clattered off somewhere on the floor. Thank the gods for the chain.

There’s a crunching, popping sound from the others. When I turn to them, the last archer is dropping from the grip of one of the poleaxe wielders. The fight’s finally over, and since the only other exit to the room is covered with wood, I take the opportunity to sit the fuck down.

This armour’s heavier than I thought. That’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's still Wednesday somewhere in the world, right?  
> Jokes aside, uni's kinda kicking my ass right now - I've got two assignments due in the next two weeks and both have basically no info, with one due on Friday that they suddenly changed the question for on the last minute~ which is fun.  
> So, I'm going to try to update the usual time next week, but I might be a tad late, sorry.
> 
> As always, please leave a comment, hearing from people is what I thrive on! Have a good one!


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